New owners have big plans for former Hoover plant

Tuesday

Jan 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMJan 29, 2008 at 4:14 PM

Christopher Semarjian isn’t used to working in places like downtown North Canton. Robert DeHoff has been doing it for 40 years. They are two of the three principals who make up Maple Street Commerce, the partnership that bought the former Hoover facility for about $5 million, with plans to redevelop it for a number of uses.

G. Patrick Kelley and Edd Pritchard

Christopher Semarjian isn’t used to working in places like downtown North Canton. Robert DeHoff has been doing it for 40 years.

They are two of the three principals who make up Maple Street Commerce, the partnership that bought the former Hoover facility for about $5 million, with plans to redevelop it for a number of uses. The plant has been all but deserted since September, when then-owner TTI Floor Care North America stopped production.

“A year from now, two years from now, this building will be teeming with employees, building (products) and servicing customers,” DeHoff told about 150 community and civic leaders and residents at a news conference Monday.

Multiple tenants

DeHoff said the plan became inefficient for the Hoover type of manufacturing.

“This facility is no longer suitable for manufacture of one product, but it certainly lends itself to a number of smaller companies using smaller spaces,” he said.

DeHoff said he’s encouraged by economic conditions, and sees small to midsize companies “adding to their work forces because their business is strong.”

And that’s good for a town. “Nothing adds to the quality of life in a community better than a good-paying job,” he said.

Semarjian, who has purchased and developed more than 20 million square feet of industrial and office space in Ohio and Pennsylvania since 1996, said he is not used to the downtown surroundings.

“The red brick, the church, City Hall. We very seldom get a chance to be at Main and Main -- Main and Maple,” he said.

While plans call for change, Semarjian said developers will do their best to keep the atmosphere of the Hoover plant. The first floor of the red-brick building will be “shelled out” for retail space, but the floors above it have the potential for residential use, and the green space in front of the building will be kept for the city’s Christmas tree.

The office building along East Maple Street -- sometimes called the “white house” -- will be stained outside so it will blend better with the red brick, he said. It will undergo changes both inside and out, as will the two-story manufacturing space going east along Maple.

Who’s coming?

One company, a warehousing outfit, already has committed to the facility and is making changes; another tenant in lease negotiations and two are in the early stages of negotiations, he said. “In the next four months, we could see four tenants in this facility.”

Another job will be to pare down the utility bills. Semarjian said it will be hard to attract or afford tenants to the facility which has monthly electric bills in excess of $100,000 and gas bills of $300,000 even when empty.

DeHoff said some environmental costs didn’t show up in the purchase price, but Semarjian said it wasn’t a major factor.

“There are some environmental points on the site,” he said. “But we feel comfortable enough with the site to the point where we’re comfortable with the residential plans.”